In Greek and Roman mythology, the island of Cythera is the birthplace of Aphrodite/Venus. In this painting, the subject may also refer to Charles Baudelaire's darker vision of the island in his 1857 poem "Un Voyage à Cythère (A Voyage to Cythera)."

In her own words...

Well, have you ever seen a mirror smash in pieces? [Insomnias] is one of those pieces I was breaking up like a prism. The smooth surfaces of what I had been doing up to then began to shift. It was like a game: hiding and revealing my familiar images, floating them in mist or storms. I felt like a magician, just to bring these forms out of nothing with my brush and paint. Paint has a real power, just the alchemy of mixing color, endlessly, so that the pieces come together, little by little to produce surprises, beasts or gods — take your choice.

By the time I stood in front of this big white canvas, the game of prisms had taken me over. I don't even know if it was a game anymore. It seemed so desperate, sometimes. It carried me away — so far that I didn't even have to choose what would be there — I just dived in, and among the forms that came out were these things, there, presiding like friends at a picnic.